[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Development of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is good news for the world. One of my newspapers says, today, that there's nothing in it for India: we can't cope with the cold-storage for the Pfizer vaccine, and both will be bought up by "rich" countries anyway.

I'll tell you one thing for sure, India has the most capacity to manufacture vaccines at scale due to its large pharma manufacturing capacity. Knowing these big drug companies, they will try to avoid India due to our laws, which are seen as a double-edged sword by some critics - I'm not too sure about the specifics, but perhaps someone with pharma law experience can elaborate.

I wish the governments & UN come up with a licensing agreement to manufacture these vaccines at scale in India so that everyone can be done with this pandemic.

[CEF_Beasts]

Entire village in Lahaul (Spiti) tests Covid positive. Due to work from home several people have gone for holidays to Spiti this year!

http://m.timesofindia.com/articlesho...campaign=cppst

[AZT]

WHO advises against Gilead's remdesivir for all hospitalised COVID-19 patients

LONDON (Reuters) - Gilead’s drug remdesivir is not recommended for patients hospitalised with COVID-19, regardless of how ill they are, as there is no evidence it improves survival or reduces the need for ventilation, a World Health Organization panel said on Friday.

“The ... panel found a lack of evidence that remdesivir improved outcomes that matter to patients such as reduced mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, time to clinical improvement, and others,” the guideline said.
The advice is another setback for the drug, which grabbed worldwide attention as a potentially effective treatment for COVID-19 in the summer after early trials showed some promise.

At the end of October, Gilead cut its 2020 revenue forecast, citing lower-than-expected demand and difficulty in predicting sales of remdesivir.

Read More: https://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINKBN280076

[am1m]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

Due to work from home several people have gone for holidays to Spiti this year!

Even that article says: "According to sources, the villagers had gathered at one place during a religious programme a few days. Social gathering is being blamed for the community transmission in the village."

But yes, the 'outsiders' are always at fault.

(That way we should be blaming China for this virus...oh wait... )

The whole village is 42 people? Am sure there must be that many covid positive people in my street in Bangalore! Sensational headlines as always.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by am1m

Even that article says: "According to sources, the villagers had gathered at one place during a religious programme a few days...

Hope they double check the results. Elon Musk complained about the virus tests. Apparently out of four tests done on him on the same day, with the same machine and the same nurse, two came out positive and two negative . https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54948005

And let's not discount the other factors like we've seen with BBMP officials.

[DCEite]

Chhathh Pooja is being celebrated right now in many parts of north/east India and from what i see, there is very little adherence to Masks and social distancing.

I think people have stopped taking the virus seriously. Sad.

[Thad E Ginathom]

About wearing masks on the street: I would. I don't intend to be much on the street anyway, but if I am, then it will be masked. It is easy to say and do this now: the discomfort in this city will begin in two to three months and peak in June.

About wearing masks with friends or family gatherings. The questions each of us should ask of ourselves are...

Yes, today I feel fine. What if that changes tomorrow? And what if I'm fine but asymptomatic? Do I want to be the one that spreads it?

[Jeroen]

Here is a bit of a sobering thought: The nation that once put a man on the moon, appears to follow the least scientific approach to dealing with the Coronavirus.

MAX WEBER, a German sociologist, contended that politics and science do not mix. Today, with the covid-19 pandemic raging around the globe, governments have little choice but to enter this unhappy marriage. A survey by Frontiers, a Swiss publisher of scientific journals, asked some 25,000 researchers in May and June whether lawmakers in their country had used scientific advice to inform their covid-19 strategy. The results offer some support for Weber’s thesis.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...AFjHCtplrOLhKw

I hate to say, but India should be doing better too.

Jeroen

[am1m]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Simply put, weddings are super-spreader events.

Got a call from an uncle last week, his daughter-in-law and son just had a baby and as the older cousin who was closest to them, he was expecting me to show up in a few weeks for some traditional rituals associated with the birth. Put me in a bit of a dilemma because it's, you know, family and a baby and all the associated religious/traditional/baby-related emotional blackmail. On the other hand, I was really not keen on spending hours indoors in these covid times with what would inevitably be a large crowd. (Of passing interest- these were the same relatives who were against me going for a run in the park in the open and on drives during the initial 'panic' stages of the pandemic - because 'it's not safe/it's non-essential/can't you live without that?!' )

But what I was really worried about was my mom expecting me to go and worse, going herself (she's 79). So was coming up with contingency plans like how do I convince my mom not to go, say I'll go instead and then just come back and isolate myself for 2 weeks away from the wife.

Turns out, I needn't have worried- as soon as she found out they had called us, my rockstar mom called up and in no uncertain terms said no one from her immediate family is going to spend time indoors with a crowd for the next 2 years, and to hell with what anyone from the family says! And that if people were stupid enough to arrange large indoor gatherings in these times for whatever reasons, that was their problem!

[DigitalOne]

One year into this pandemic, how are countries faring on the key statistic of Deaths per million population?

Here is the sobering list sorted descending on deaths per million. It was fairly clear before that Europe was doing pretty badly, but South American countries like Chile, Argentina, Peru are also having it real bad.

One key learning is that reading only Indian or US media doesn't really give the whole picture.

Source: Worldometers.info

[Nalin1]

Scientists increasingly say that there is little to no evidence that contaminated surfaces can spread the virus. In crowded indoor spaces like airports, they say, the virus that is exhaled by infected people and that lingers in the air is a much greater threat.

https://www.news18.com/news/world/th...s-3099641.html

[mukeshgoel]

Originally Posted by am1m

I was really not keen on spending hours indoors in these covid times with what would inevitably be a large crowd. (

Me and my wife have learned to say NO to such invitation. Simplest is to tell them I am having very light seasonal cough and I/we don't want anybody to catch any probable infection from me/us.

[srishiva]

Not sure how what the impact of Oxford's 70% effective vaccine results are. They are quite excited about it. I guess even in India they are doing the trials but we still need to wait for the results.

BBC on first page had the news item "Johnson praises Oxford vaccine". I thought its good of Johnson & Johnson to do that. Turns out it was PM Johnson

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Not sure how what the impact of Oxford's 70% effective vaccine results are. They are quite excited about it.

This is indeed a fantastic development. There are reasons to be excited about the Astrazeneca-Oxford vaccine:
- Cheaper than Pfizer, Moderna vaccines which are based on mRNA technology.
- Can be stored for longer time and in 2-8 centigrade.
- Production by the world's biggest vaccine manufacturer, Serum Institute of India. Production is already underway.
- Indian government has already contracted the purchase of 500 million doses from Serum Institute.

[Zen2001]

Originally Posted by am1m

Turns out, I needn't have worried- as soon as she found out they had called us, my rockstar mom called up and in no uncertain terms said no one from her immediate family is going to spend time indoors with a crowd for the next 2 years, and to hell with what anyone from the family says! And that if people were stupid enough to arrange large indoor gatherings in these times for whatever reasons, that was their problem!

Good for you. Wish people had more sense - both, not to hold any public/large family gatherings AND to say no to such events of invited. However, such are the events that most Indians would not think of not attending!

Simply put, biology and sociology do not go together these days.